zaterdag 28 april 2012

This is their quote: “A good rule of thumb is, bare breasts and bottoms are "moderate." Full frontal nudity is "restricted."”

After I uploaded some of my digital art I found a letter in my mailbox this morning, letting me know that my photo-stream was moderated. Why? They got a complaint: some bare breasts or bottoms were found; Body parts which should be covered, even in art. According to their rules the Venus of Milo and other classic art-works should be restricted. It is nudity in its most subversive way. How dare I using other naked parts then an allowed head or hand, foot maybe, however I’m not sure. It could trigger the foot-fetishists, no?

What is wrong with the human body, a work of art we all carry as long as we live? Born naked but covered as soon as we cry ourselves into this world. If it was only to keep us warm…, but no: once covered don’t show it anymore, and certainly not in public! Imagine that someone sees it who doesn’t even dare to look in the mirror when
undressed…

It shows us humans as hypocrites: what we need the most to survive we cannot show in its original form. It is sex-related according to the puritans, and sex is dirty because it is where we all come from and that shouldn’t be known at all. The secret of life must be really kept a secret.

Besides this it is another violation against the open forum the Internet once was. Companies rule, and the bigger they are the more unwanted and never meant we have to swallow. In my opinion companies with restrictions should stay away from the Internet and that almost means today that the Internet should stay away at all. Because that is where it is all about: the Net turned into a money-machine and the ones who earn this way are afraid to loose customers, like politicians are afraid to loose votes. It is not about an opinion or meaning but about numbers, and not even the mass,
because the mass doesn’t think that “Venus” has to be covered. It is about
dictators’ ruling as this is what a small group can if you call a society
democracy. Not what the majority allows or wants, because they don’t care.
These are the rules of a minority with a strong opinion and the possibilities
to ventilate them and pressure others to live by their norms. That is what we
call democracy: the rules of a few who dare to shout!

vrijdag 27 april 2012

In 1989 I was asked, as an artist, to install an exhibition
about the Amsterdam
IJ-borders. It meant to be a historic overview and I only had eight weeks to
realize it. An impossible job if it wasn’t that I had studied archeology for a
while and therefore knew how to do historic research. Still it wasn’t an easy
nut to crack in that time period.

I wasn’t the only one who was aware of this. Some amateur
historians, who were involved in the project, called it nonsense to invite an
artist to clear the job, and they were quit surprised when the end-result was
much more then they expected.

At the beginning it was just an extra and paid order for me.
I only lived three years in Amsterdam,
and didn’t know much more about the city – and especially the IJ – than someone
else who lived there for such a short period, but I knew my way in historical
archives, managed to dig up what I needed and to illustrate the exhibition.
Especially the historians were surprised, and admitted this. I was asked to
stay with the project which wasn’t just a one time historical illustration of Amsterdam’s important
sea-gate.

The IJ divides the city in two: the old part with the town
center and 19th century quarters on the south side and the former
agricultural and industrial quarters in the North. This was the capitals
stepchild, however close to the center but divided by the IJ it wasn’t easy to
approach. A couple of –free- ferries made it possible to cross but the border
alongside was mainly a composition of the old and long gone shipyard activity
and some pre-fabricated housing facilities. It had to be modernized to cope
with the south border and to become really a part of the Amsterdam agglomeration. A group of people
saw this and formed the Noordzij (North side) association to work at the
realization of re-structuring the northern border. The exhibition, in which I
was involved, was just part of a festival to launch the idea among a broader
audience.

After my successful introduction I was asked to stay and
guide the cultural events the association had planned for the future. I became
the official exhibition coordinator, and later the vice-president of the club
which wanted to work to an end-conclusion in order to bring attention to the
re-structuring of the northern border towards the city and council of Amsterdam.

E V E N T S

Noordzij festival

The first festival was strictly cultural, just to bring
attention to the subject. The exhibition I was responsible for, and another,
done by a different artist which showed artistic views around the IJ-border.
Besides the two exhibitions, which were the center of the festival, a lot of
street acts were performed, photographed and documented by Kors van Bennekom.

Meetings

The goal was to organize meetings in order to grab as much
as possible ideas and to create an as broad as possible basis in the area.
People have to know and to understand why changes have to evolve if you want
them to support. The association brought those meetings as close to the audience
as possible, organizing in cultural centrums and hotels nearby. Participation
was as broad as one could expect: people who lived in the neighborhood,
entrepreneurs and local politicians. New ideas were brought in and the
discussion around re-structuring came to surface. Based on these meetings an
end-conclusion would finally be formulated and brought to attention of the
responsible governmental services.

Exhibition in the ferry office

The organization started in one of the cultural centers
which was only a temporary location, but moved to the former ferry-office. A
headquarters was formed with a small permanent staff and I was asked to
celebrate the new location with an exhibition which showed the results so far.

Tolhuis exhibition

Every initiative located on the border of the IJ was used to
give more attention to the project. When Tolhuis, a restaurant and former
toll-office, was renovated, the inauguration was a perfect reason to put the
Noordzij association in the spotlights again. A meeting was organized framed by
an exhibition around the plans and realizations by the organization as was
achieved. It was a first preparation for the community to make them aware of
the possible results as would be formulated in the end-conclusion.

Springtij festival

Like a pyramid all the effort came together in a one time
and extremely large festival to celebrate the results of, in total, four years
of hard work. In the summer of 1993 the Springtij (spring-tide) festival was
organized with exhibitions on both sides of the IJ, discussion meetings in
boats on the IJ itself, enlightened with all kinds of street manifestations and
performances. Architectural plans for both the borders were shown. The
end-conclusion was a fact, however not printed yet, but the recommendations
were already addressed to the proper institutions. The festival was a gigantic
success with a lot of media attention and visitors. It underlined everything
the association stood and had worked for.

End conclusion

The end-conclusion was presented in a booklet of over a
hundred pages text and photos. I was asked to do the layout to make it as
attractive as possible. It was something to be proud of, and a lot of the ideas
formulated came actually to plans and are realized in the mean time. If you compare
the northern border today by almost 20 years ago you see the differences and
the huge change the formally industrial Amsterdam
IJ-borders went through.

dinsdag 17 april 2012

The female body already inspired
me when I was a kid, but the first nude who actually posed for me was a
girlfriend. I was just a teenager, 15 years old when she stretched naked on my
parents’ bed, of course during a time I was alone at home. A couple of clumsy
drawings, but we thought they looked quit well. As a student there were the
models at the academy, and during my whole life I asked women to pose, whether
or not I was in a relationship with her. When I lived in Amsterdam we had a small class together with
colleague artists, from who most were females. Every Friday we had a model,
often the same girl, but not always. We paid her a small amount, for us to
study and sketch.

from the series FANTASIES; no. 1, digital art

The early works

Apart from the sketches and
drawings I made from girlfriends or my wife, it took till the eighties until I
made the female nude to one of my favorite subjects in my art expressions.
Maybe I thought that it was a subject which belonged to the pass. It was the
time of environmental art and political statements. But what comes first has to
go first, and following on my “Indian” period the nude more or less slipped
into my art, as by accident. Still looking for the right expression and
searching for ways to paint and draw the beautiful curves. This matured during
my time in Amsterdam and even more in Antwerp, living with my
girlfriend. Still working with models; women I knew, young as well as older as
age doesn’t matter in painting.

from the series FANTASIES; no. 3, digital art

Digitals

After I moved to Spain
digital expression became more important; not only because of the evolving
possibilities and techniques, but also because I made the digital way to my
profession. More and more I earned my living as an Internet and multimedia
specialist and of course this affected my art. The digitals I create are not
only about the nude female body, but it is still one of my favorite subjects.
In the beginning I used analogue created paintings and drawings I made earlier
and which I re-worked to digital creations. The more I discovered the graphical
tools, the more I could rely on them to create a digital image from scratch. Of
course I sometimes still use existing images or photos to re-work, but mostly
also this basis is from my hand.

from the series FANTASIES; no. 12, digital art

About me

In 1980 I had my first
solo-exhibition, why I schedule that year as my start as an independent and
self-employed visual artist. Before I worked mainly as an illustrator, which I
still did after 1980 to make a living. Especially in the beginning art was a
side-income, which became more and more important during the years building
contacts. A lot of my work is in private collections but also in museums and
companies.

I created a lot, thousands of
works, from very small to extremely large, and I never bothered about materials
but used what I thought I needed for the specific work or series I was
creating. That is why a lot of my art is mixed media.

Not only in my visuals the female
body is important, also in my writings, as most of my stories are about the
intercourse and relation between men and women. That untouchable subject
without we would not exist as human beings.

from the series FANTASIES; no. 21, digital art

Background

I’m from an artistic family. A
grandfather was into pottery, and another wrote (historical) stories and books.
My mother liked to draw but never matured in the matter as women had to be
there for their siblings in those days. I draw and write since I remember, but
was quite late taking classes because of several reasons. What formed me mainly
was my stay of almost three years in the US
where I followed art-courses at the PalomarCollege in San Diego where I had my first experience
with computer-art, as the digital revolution was still called in the beginning.
Afterwards I studied at several art-schools, as well in the Netherlands as
abroad. The classical way which I followed in the beginning, looking for my own
way later, but still; classical themes are never far away, even in the digitals
I create today.

from the series FANTASIES; no. 33, digital art

Digital art

As mentioned above Palomar was my
first experience with computers and therefore digital art. Experimental and
still in slow motion compared by today, the possibilities to create were mainly
in ASCII and copying machines: re-creating what already existed the digital
way.

After I returned to Europe I had
the luck that Rank Xerox Benelux invited me to work in their showroom, thanks
to my experience in the US.
I had the chance to use their prototypes for over a year and the company did
more. They made it possible to show the work I created worldwide; from the US till as far as Japan.

Also during my time in Amsterdam I had several possibilities to experiment
digitally, but the real turn came after a six month course Internet Developer
Expert in Antwerp.
That is where I could work with, back then, still very expensive tools from for
example Adobe and Macromedia. The possibilities grew and therefore my way to
express and experiment.

donderdag 5 april 2012

Another experience forced me to write this blog, but it is not a stand-alone. The more Internet is integrated into society, the more fools are developing it seems.

A hash statement indeed, but this is what I experience, certainly this last year, and I can imagine why hackers unite to bombard companies and institutions. The ignorance at the servers-side is enormous. Not only is it a hassle, even for more experienced users, to find your way through websites and applications, but it is also a fact that complete communities are banned from logging in of what they need. To explain this I will show an illustration.

Yesterday I needed to log on to the server of the city of Maastricht (Netherlands), but whatever button I pushed, I constantly was directed back to the original page, so I asked for an explanation by email. The response was a couple of links and the remark that the application was best shown in Internet Explorer. This sounded suspicious. Yesterday I tried to log-in from a Linux environment using Firefox, so I started to test, and guess what…

Not only is it impossible to access the application with browsers like Chrome, Safari or Opera, they simply do not allow Apple or Linux users. They ban complete communities by writing an application just for Windows XP or higher, and even under this Operating System you are just allowed to access by using IE7, Firefox5, or higher. If this is not discrimination…, or is the majority of servers sponsored by Microsoft to save their own skin? This idea comes to mind more often lately. The success of Macintosh and the growth of the Linux community since Ubuntu has to be countered one way or the other.

This story is even getting worse…

Thanks to the links and by using WinXP with the Firefox browser I was able to see the buttons, however clicking them I was asked for my DigID (Digital ID). The next screen told me that my password was incorrect. Pardon? I used it – on a different server – just a couple of weeks ago, and everything went fine, so I tried again. The same result came up. I became more and more angry on the bloody system, but that didn’t help. I could only do two things: hack the damn thing or renew my password. Since the second possibility seemed less time consuming I went for it, gave in my username and password to reset it, and… it came back unaccepted. Suddenly I understood why.

A couple of months ago the DigID servers were hacked and a lot of information could be out in the open. A scandal which came as far as a Dutch parliament discussion, and the company responsible was fired, went even busted, I believe. However; the old system had failed and the new responsible company changed it of course. Nothing against it: safety first. But to wipe out the used certificates – mine was 16bits, if someone wants to crack that, go ahead for the poor info I leave behind – brings a lot of people into trouble. During my last session a couple of weeks ago, months after the hacking took place, it was already clear that my information was untouched: so why delete it with all the trouble of renewing and waiting for five days on an activation code. Afterwards maybe hacking was less time consuming, though.

But enough about me; imagine our whole elderly generation which doesn’t have a clue how a computer or Internet works. The last couple of years they are forced to buy a pc and get a connection to the Net, because otherwise it is hardly too impossible to apply for their pension, taxes, or whatever one has to do to satisfy the government. All those people who have trouble to cope with the future will have the same experience as I, without any warning. Their passwords, carefully written down in an old notebook, won’t work anymore, without even a simple email to explain. Imagine the panic if suddenly something doesn’t work that always did and what you don’t understand anyhow. No access to what so ever, and what happened with the name of the cousin you always used and always worked fine?

On the one hand today’s governments want to let us believe that digitalization of society is a blessing: everything will work smoother, easier and faster. It is like the banks in the past; convincing people to give their money to them, and look what happened recently… It is the same with governments: if they really understand were society is heading to – that the future is on the Net, indeed! – Then they in the first place have to make sure that no one is ruled out. Not someone from over 70, and not anyone who is using something else than a poor operating system Windows still is. Highly commercialized, for certain, but as weak as Moses’ basket…